because they could not get along at school, but need not necessarily work.

The standard of living and ambitions of the family are, after all, the determining force. The mother of a family of 8 children living in apparently direst poverty would have been glad to make sacrifices and pinch still further to have her daughter stay in school longer, if she would do so. The mother of another family of 6, living in a nice apartment house, with hardwood floors, piano, and other luxuries, said her daughter wished to stay in school longer, but the burden of supporting the family was too heavy for the father to bear alone; so the girl was taken out of school to go to work. A visit to a Swedish family revealed a carpenter and his wife, a washerwoman, who had just built and owned a nice new three-story apartment house. Yet the 15-year-old daughter with a seventh grade education had been sent to work in a paper-goods factory at $2 a week.

The question "Why did you leave school?" was put to some 336 more mature workers in the corset trade. Ninety-one per cent of these women had left school between the ages of 13 and 16, and fully 50 per cent because of their dislike of school or because they wanted to go to work. Of 74 workers in a clothing factory, 85 per cent had left school between the ages of 13 and 16, 25 per cent of their own volition.1

Such facts emphasize the large demand for training which gives opportunity for manual combined with mental development. During these years between the ages of 13 and 15 there is a marked desire for manual or physical activity, a characteristic natural to this stage of physical development, which must find expression in the actual doing of things. The parents of these children leaving school, in many oft-repeated instances, were willing, and, as has been shown, fully one-half were economically able, to have the daughter stay in school longer, but "when she takes a notion in her head, there's no doing anything with her," so she goes to the mill, the factory, or the store at $1, $1.50, or $2 a week, which in many cases is more than she is worth to her employer.

Visits and talks with the families as well as the girls, therefore, reveal a situation which quite contradicts the usual impression that the parent takes the child out of school or forces her to go to work at an early age.

F. Summary. The foregoing statistics show several most significant facts: (1) That more than 700 girls under 16 years of age took out certificates to go to work in the past year, and that this number is increasing at the rate of 40 per cent, or about 200 girls in five years.

1 These percentages are very conservative statements. Many workers did not specify whether volition or necessity was the cause of their leaving school, merely answering "to go to work." None of these answers were included in either group in determining the percentages,

(2) That 60 per cent leave at the earliest age the law allows, at 14 years of age. (3) That 8 per cent could not pass the fifth-grade test, one-third could not pass the seventh-grade test, and one-half could not pass the ninth-grade test. (4) That this exodus does not indicate economic necessity. Of 214 families studied, fully one-half the girls were not forced to curtail their education, and 55 per cent were living in really comfortable homes. Furthermore, almost one-half of those children who might continue in school were only 14 years of age, and one-fourth had not reached the seventh grade.

IV. INDUSTRIES WHICH YOUNG GIRLS ENTER.

A popular supposition seems to prevail in Worcester that the majority of young girls who leave the grammar grades go into mercantile establishments. But only 22 per cent, or less than one-fourth of the total number, entered that industry last year. The factories and mills claimed more than three-fourths of them.

Of the latter, the corset factories and the textile and knitting mills, drew 56 per cent of the girls, the corset factories getting 28 per cent, or the largest proportion of the whole. Five other industries claimed the majority of the remaining girls-the manufacture of metal goods, 10 per cent; paper goods, 6 per cent; shoes and slippers, 4 per cent; women's clothing, factory product, 5 per cent; and food and drug products, 3 per cent.1

But two determining forces appear to decide what industries the most of the girls enter. The young girl who lives in the neighborhood of a large factory or mill is likely to work in the nearest factory during the first few years, but distance from home is a less important factor as she becomes older. The occupation of an older member of the family, primarily the mother or older sister, is a very apparent determining factor. Of the 214 girls visited, about 25 per cent were working in factories where their mothers or sisters were working or had worked.

V. KINDS OF WORK DONE BY YOUNG GIRLS.

A. Unskilled industries. In all these factory industries (excluding dressmaking and millinery) the girls of 14 to 16 perform unskilled work. This may assume different forms, as boning corsets or tending machines in the corset factory; running errands; folding waists, dresses, or shirts in a clothing factory; doffing in the textile mills; putting pasteboard sheets into a machine in the paper box factory.

1 See p. 58.

This term has been used throughout the report to indicate those industries which are in the process of developing an advanced stage of industrial evolution. Such industries, whether employing a large or small number of workers, show a fairly high subdivision of labor, specialized and repetitious work, use of artificial mechanical power and also that peculiar characteristic which differentiates them from large highly skilled industries—a standardization of process or product.

F. Need of trade-training school.-One great need of the industrial world stands out prominently-a trade-training school which can take the 14 or 15 year-old girls who will not go to the regular schools and must go to work in a year or two. If this trade-training school can give her such equipment that she may be lifted over the preliminary unskilled processes in the industry and put upon work which continually trains and develops her for a higher kind of work, the great mass of unskilled, unstable workers must in time decrease.

VI. WOMEN-EMPLOYING INDUSTRIES OF WORCESTER.

With this in view, three problems come up for consideration: First, what are the women-employing industries of Worcester? Second, what are the opportunities as to numbers needed, self-development, financial compensation, and future outlook in each trade? Third, what can be done to adapt the women for the better trades and adapt the trades to the women workers so as to secure for both the best possible results? In other words, what is the need of and opportunity for trade training?

The general facts learned from the study of a single year's group of girls serve as a fairly good index to the women-employing industries of Worcester. Statistics show that approximately 1,300 women and 138 minors were employed in the mercantile establishments of Worcester during the past year; that 8,000 women and 1,000 minors, not including home workers, were employed in manufacturing in Worcester; that is, five-sixths of the women and five-sixths of the minors at work are engaged in manufactures.

Four industries occupy almost 90 per cent of the women employed in manufactures. The machine-operating trades, covering the production of corsets, women's clothing, and shoes and slippers, stand foremost, with 52 per cent of the women and 65 per cent of the girls employed in these four industries. The textile industries rank second, employing 18 per cent of the women and 20 per cent of the girls. Wire and metal goods rank third, with 15 per cent of the women and 9 per cent of the girls. The metal trades draw a comparatively small number of girls from school, because of the heavier physical demands. Envelopes and paper goods rank fourth, with 13 per cent of the women and 5 per cent of the girls.

1 Statistics from records of factory inspection. These figures must be accepted as indicative rather than statistical.

1 Statistics gained from records of factory inspector, together with those acquired by personal visits.

A. Unskilled industries.-The textile industry, wire and metal goods and paper goods manufactures offer comparatively small opportunity for self-development, as has already been shown, though in some cases larger opportunity for financial advancement. The majority of the processes in the textile mills are highty mechanical and offer little opportunity other than tending machines. Weavers get good pay ($5 to $14 per week), but this branch has been closed to women in one large factory, because of the 56-hour law. In the carpet mills a large number of hand sewers are employed, and receive $12 to $18 a week. In the worsted and yai'n mills a small number of burlers or menders (hand sewers) receive from $6 to $12 a week.

The metal trades are probably the most hopeless of all trades as an industrial career for women, yet they are the third largest womenemploying industry of Worcester. The superintendent of one of the large wire factories granted that "there is little future" in the trade. Beginners in this factory start with 75 cents a day, the majority getting $1.75, with a maximum of $2 a day.

The paper trades are more desirable, in that the physical demands are less severe, the work cleaner, and the surroundings probably more attractive. The manager of a large envelope factory, however, frankly says there is no future in the business for girls, and that only workers of a type not high enough for skilled trades should be encouraged to go into it. The average girl learns the processes in one to two months, but according to one employer requires three years to reach the maximum speed. Folding of envelopes by machine is wholly unskilled work, the girl merely feeding the paper into the machine. Folding envelopes by hand requires a certain degree of accuracy, deftness, and speed, as does also covering pasteboard boxes with glazed paper. With the piecework system, envelope makers receive from $9 to $15 and box makers from $4 to $12, according to process and product. The manufacture of fancy pap products, such as valentines, cards, etc., is pleasant and attract

stays six months. In spite of this provision, the proprietor estimates that he loses annually more than $1,500 on his learners. A clothing factory requires a deposit of $1 from all learners. Another clothing factory keeps back $10 for loss of the forewoman's time, which is refunded to the worker at the end of the first year if she is still working in the factory.

Reports from the less skilled industries show a still more serious situation. One of the large paper-goods firms, with a total force of 200 workers, says he "takes on 250 learners during the year and that 50 per cent do not stay long enough to give themselves or the work a fair trial. Many come from curiosity and stay only a week or two, yet each girl has cost several days of the time of a high-priced forewoman." The manager of a biscuit factory employing about 75 workers says the girls stay with the factory only a short time. A wire factory with a still lower grade of work shows still greater fluctuation in the working force. The processes can be learned in a few days and the maximum wage reached in two months. The result is that, although the regular force consists of about 150 women workers at any one time, from 450 to 500 learners pass through the factory in a year, generally staying but a few months.

Shifting for betterment would be advisable if the workers actually bettered their condition. But this is an open question. All learners or inexperienced workers in any trade, whether it offers a future or not, must serve a certain amount of time in the unskilled processes. A large proportion do not stay long enough in any one trade to become skilled workers. The result is an army of drifters and unskilled workers always condemned to irregular and uncertain work, inefficiency, and low pay. The instability and irresponsibility of young workers, together with the efforts of the Consumers' League, have resulted in the exclusion of girls under 16 from the better factories and industries. Five of the eleven clothing factories visited, employing about 750 women workers, do not admit girls under 16. Unfortunately, this increasing tendency to exclude girls under 16 from the better factories has a reflex action on the industry itself, complicating the labor problem of the better industries, by allowing the unskilled trades to ruin those who might in mature years become skilled workers.

The girls of 14 and 15 leaving school to go to work then have little choice except the unskilled industries, where they must spend from one to two years in purely monotonous or mechanical work. After one to two years' experience, they are eligible to the more skilled industries from the standpoint of age; but the study of 200 women in one of the highly skilled trades of Boston and 109 in those of

I Amount not ascertained.